Category: characters

We lived in a poor, jubilant village, crowded with colors and chickens and goats and children, and we all vied for attention and affection. There were loud voices from our fathers, who sweat through old lime T-shirts and black-market Wranglers. They worked meager jobs, and were paid with dirt and flour, black beans and strong coffee. And there were the lyrical demands of our mothers, who swept and sighed and shouted and cooked, and we adored them above all others. We did not know they were unequal, because nobody told us. When did this happen?

I do not know who decided that one was better than the other. Who reasoned that the men who worked the hardest were the least, and the women who raised their heads and their children were even less? This news did not come from us.

I would have been happy to strain my arms in a work field next to my father, or sweep the floors of a hundred houses if it helped my mother. That was who we were, this is what did.

I don’t know if my memory is real, or if this is something I read in a book.

We lived in a place of zesty skies and lime shadows. I think this is a real thing, but I don’t remember.

I have been looking for the moral code of the universe for a long time, and I have discovered that there is none. We are all rolling like hogs off a cliff.

Now, a man like Cándido, he will disagree with me, and he is a most agreeable soul. He will share his cigarettes and tequila, and he is a good listener. He avoids speaking nonsense, and I am often curious how his mind works. He knows my history with drink, because I am loud with it; it has become a part of my vitality and legend. “I used to be a drunk,” I will say, and you can imagine the bright lights and angels that greet that declaration. If there are angels, I further say, and if anyone gives a damn, I would weep for them.

I am one of many, one of six, and Cándido, he is our santo patrón, and I am our patron drunk. Oh, poor Luis, you may say, the drunk is the clown of the story, the clown who hides his tears in whiskey. I tell you this: save your pity and your piety, for I can be as cruel and foolish as you like, and I will still outrun your prophecies. You cannot save yourself if yourself does not demand it. A wise and judicious man told me that, and do you know what? It was me. Ha! And so I defied all expectation and defied the whiskey, because I still care a little for what is left of my soul. Did you know that in the time it takes for the rope to uncoil, it takes less time to wrap it around one’s throat?

You see? I am loud with it! Did I not tell you?

Cándido, he will sometimes share his drink with me, and it would be impolite to refuse him. I think my friend understands much about the rope, but I do not ask him. I know he would not say. He is a thoughtful man, Cándido is, perhaps more so than I.

We sit cross-legged on the scatter rug and listen to the rain peck at the windows. The water fractures itself against the screen and it draws patterns I want to trace with my fingers. We have a box of candles on the kitchen table, for when the dark comes back inside. She leans into me whenever the rain turns loud, and her face is solemn and so still. Outside, the wind carves itself into the hickory trees. She can’t hear me offer up comfort, so I lean back into her. We listen. We wait.

This is a place of unremarkable geometry, of hand hewn beams and reclaimed cabinets, of cotton curtains and poplin tablecloths.There are stout lines built around her silly feminine froth. You might savvy her girlish moods: the bright New Orleans yellow in the hallway, or maybe the baby doll figurines on the bookcase. But don’t forget, this is my home, and it is a place of unremarkable cruelties.

There are stains in my study that look like ketchup, but are not. There are sudden movements that turn on all the security lights.There is a smell that is barely masked by the nine dollar dirt that feeds her windowsill herbs.

I’ve heard all these sounds before, but this one is closer, and I know why. There is a man on the other side of the door, limping, wet from the chase. He beats on the glass with the heel of his hand. I turn on the porch light because I know. I’ve been expecting him for twenty years, back from a time when my life was fraying. He took the left road and I took the right. I don’t want to see him now — for us to see each other, really — but his t-shirt is torn from armpit to belly, and I swore to him. He is older now, of course he is, but his eyes still show his fury, and mine have turned soft and careless.